It’s amazing the skills hunters acquire and take for granted.

It’s challenging for non-hunters to even remotely recognize the difficulties involved in bagging any type of game consistently. I know for a fact if you were to take a non-hunter with no experience in shooting or woodcraft you could provide them a rifle, camo clothing, and a free license and they would have little chance of shooting a deer or turkey on public land.

First, a non-hunter would be more a danger to themselves than the game or anyone unlucky enough to be close to them if unfamiliar with firearms. How to load, unload, safety basics, the correct ammunition for the caliber, using a knife, tree stand rules, navigating in the forest, far less how to properly hold the rifle or see clearly through the scope.

They have no comprehension how to shoot accurately if by a small miracle they ever manage to somehow find the game in the field of view. Just locating the target in a rifle scope takes some serious preparation when you’re a beginner. With no instruction, forget it — the game would be long, long gone while they were struggling to locate their target.

Yet, I or any experienced hunter shoulders the rifle and is instantly looking at the animal as the stock hits his shoulder. Body, arms, neck, and arms all work automatically. It’s a muscle memory reflex that takes time to master.

Whenever I’ve taken a non-hunter or younger person unaccustomed to spotting game into the woods, it’s amazing how much they don’t see. In fact, it’s very difficult to point out game easily detected by you. It can become acutely frustrating just trying to point out the animal to them.

One non-hunter with excellent eyesight was hiking with me. I saw a chipmunk sitting on top of a small stump, the sunlight shining brightly on him only 20 yards away.

To a trained eye, the rich, reddish color of the chipmunk, the sun actually spotlighting him against the darker green of the leaves, and the fact he was positioned on top of a stump made the small animal stand out like a sore thumb.

“Look at that chipmunk!” I exclaimed, pointing. “Isn’t he pretty?”

My friend stared and stared, but he couldn’t see him. I was amazed, but then asked if he could see the stump?

Which stump, he then asked; there were several stumps in view. I immediately thought the stump with the chipmunk on it was the obvious answer, but restrained my impatience.

It took three-to-four minutes before he finally was able to focus on the chipmunk and “see” it. He laughed at himself, of course, but the fact was his eyes were untrained in picking out living shapes, colors and textures amid the complexity of the forest. If any of the animals we saw moved, he picked them up fairly quickly, if still he struggled.

Following up on that thought is the critical importance of motion itself. Nothing reveals you or your quarry’s presence more quickly than motion, no matter how slight.

Quick, jerky motions are immediately detected and assumed to be the start of a charge, leap or slash. Any animal’s instinctive reaction is to run, flush or hide. Even if the animal isn’t looking directly at you, rapid movement is easily picked in their peripheral sight.

It seems to be, a human being’s natural reaction upon sighting wildlife is to point and yell, “Look, a deer!” This alarms the animal and reveals your presence.

Hunters know from countless encounters — motion is your biggest enemy — and trained themselves to freeze the instant they detect a wild creature. Many times, they see each other simultaneously.

I’ve stood with one foot in the air until the agony was unbearable while a deer stood staring, not quite sure what they’d seen. Any additional movement, no matter how slight, and they run, so you wait and wait until they look away and then ever so slowly lower your foot. Oh, the relief.

It is difficult to explain to non-hunters how quickly things can happen. Despite the most careful scrutiny of your surroundings, ceaselessly looking 360 degrees around you, animals oftentimes simply appear as if by magic.

One second, the clearings empty, you look around, look back and there stands a buck. How in the world did he get there? It’s spooky, but any hunter will tell you it’s true.

When animals appear unexpectedly, you have only seconds to react properly and fire a shot.

Hunters often spend 11-hour days in the stand enduring rain, cold, snow, high winds, boredom, becoming extremely uncomfortable, discouraged, depressed and disillusioned. “Why am I doing this?” they ask themselves time after time, and the answer is ever so elusive.

But they endure — nature’s price must be paid, the hunter proven worthy of the prize.

Why do I hunt?

Ask the geese high in the night sky, the buck snorting and pawing the ground, the pheasant exploding from the corn or the turkey brazenly gobbling as dawn streaks the sky. Question the stream rushing down the hillside, the lake blue under the sun or the river rushing impatiently toward the sea.

They are and I am — Inseparable.